Though in our defense, there are also plenty of times when the numbers are wrong and journalists are right.
After performing a basic checksum, we contacted the UN to get a clarification on their firearm-homicides report discrepancy (their A + B should have been equal to C, but wasn't in some cases.) Their response was to basically manually correct column C without ever explaining why it was off. That shook our confidence in their collection and analysis methodology.
State department nonimmigrant visa statistics for the past decade has plenty of numbers for T-2, T-3, T-4, T-5 visas (about 1,500) but only zeroes for T-1. Problem? Description of "T-2" through 5 is "Spouse of T-1", "Child of T-1", "Parent of T-1" and "Unmarried siblings of T-1". So if these are dependents of the visa holders, what happened to T-1's? After pursuing this, we received no comment and hit a dead-end. Somewhat understandably, as T-1 description is a sensitive topic: "T-1: Severe human trafficking informants."
Pardon my skepticism, but an automated tool that replaces vetting, critical thinking and analysis may not be as helpful as it leads to believe. I've punched in three stories that I specifically know came from a PR, and the tool wasn't able to spot anything amiss with it.
After performing a basic checksum, we contacted the UN to get a clarification on their firearm-homicides report discrepancy (their A + B should have been equal to C, but wasn't in some cases.) Their response was to basically manually correct column C without ever explaining why it was off. That shook our confidence in their collection and analysis methodology.
State department nonimmigrant visa statistics for the past decade has plenty of numbers for T-2, T-3, T-4, T-5 visas (about 1,500) but only zeroes for T-1. Problem? Description of "T-2" through 5 is "Spouse of T-1", "Child of T-1", "Parent of T-1" and "Unmarried siblings of T-1". So if these are dependents of the visa holders, what happened to T-1's? After pursuing this, we received no comment and hit a dead-end. Somewhat understandably, as T-1 description is a sensitive topic: "T-1: Severe human trafficking informants."